Sasha Pepelyaev

IDIOTHELLO is the sort of theatre, which I’m interested in. This kind of theatre does not tell you the stories (in fact the stories were told a long time ago), this theatre shows pictures. Pictures have their own life and two pictures together don’t make just a sum, but rather form a new picture, probably very very different from the originals. In the process of opening the set of pictures of IDIOTHELLO, I start long way of asking myself those eternal questions of human nature, the nature of theatre, the nature of what we call „game”, „performance” and „communication”

as they say: we don’t know each other that good. we don’t have to talk.

http://www.violettsays.at

all the best, Alexander “Sasha” Pepelyaev

IDIOT

Fyodor Dostojevsky 1869

Prince Lyov Nikolayevich Myshkin returns to Russia after a long absence. Myshkin suffers from epilepsy--just like Fyodor Dostoevsky himself--and is prone to blackouts and periods of apparent insanity. This has been treated with some success in Switzerland, but much of what Russian society views as idiocy is simply honesty and trustfulness, in spite of social conventions. The Myshkin family line is said to end with him and his cousin.

On the train to Saint Petersburg, Myshkin meets and befriends the dark and impassioned Rogozhin. The latter tells the prince about his passion for Nastasya Filipovna, a beautiful woman with a bad reputation. Myshkin arrives at the house of General Yepantchin, who is married to the only other living member of the Myshkin line. Myshkin learns that Ganya, a young go-getter and secretary of the General, wants to marry Nastasya for her dowry. The prince feels an irresistible desire to meet her after hearing about her and even more so when he views a picture of her in the General’s office.

At Nastasya’s name-day party, Myshkin sees Rogozhin arrive drunk and offer the young woman a large amount of money to follow him. The prince perceives the despair of Nastasya and proposes to her in order to save her from her situation. She, believing the prince’s offer stems only from pity, flees with Rogozhin. The two men, formerly bound by friendship, become rivals. Rogozhin even tries to kill his friend with a knife, but is hindered when, due to the stress of the situation, Myshkin falls into an epileptic fit.
Over the course of the novel, Myshkin grows closer to the General’s daughter, Aglaya, but he eventually gives her up to save Nastasya, culminating in a final meeting at Rogozhin’s home where the young girl confronts the woman. Myshkin moves to leave with Aglaya, but stops when Nastasya questions the fact that he would leave with her and faints into his arms. He decides to marry Nastasya for fear she will return to Rogozhin and never live a healthy life.

On the day of the marriage, however, Nastasya again flees with Rogozhin, who then kills her.
The novel ends with Myshkin and Rogozhin lying together by the body of Nastasya: Myshkin sinks into total insanity; Rogozhin is sentenced to labor in Siberia; and Aglaya rushes into an unhappy marriage.

By making Myshkin a paragon of kindness and humility, Dostoyevsky shows what can happen when such a man is confronted by society. Myshkin frequently confronts society’s norms with his “idiocy,” which is merely his apparently naieve approach to life. However, it is merely a search for truth in human relationships, he is not naive about what others say to him and about him, he merely assumes they’re true because human beings should have no need for falsehood. The prince frequently faces various social turmoils throughout the novel, petty arguments and ridiculous assumptions. Unfortunately, the “idiot” cannot save himself from society and fails in the end.

http://en.wikipedia.org